


Attack/Defend, or, Pie Fixes Almost Anything

by inwaves



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwaves/pseuds/inwaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack calls Bitty at 2'o'clock in the morning, because /that's/ a normal thing to do, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attack/Defend, or, Pie Fixes Almost Anything

Eric Bittle rubbed his face, body stiff from waking too suddenly. His phone seemed to be vibrating off the nightstand, but it also seemed to be 2 a.m. He only reached to answer it when it actually _did_ vibrate off the nightstand and landed with a clunk onto the floor.

It was too late and he was too bleary to really remember if his roommate was there that night — _and would he disturb him if he answered_ — but he never was, really, so he flipped the phone open.

“Mmmhello?”  
“Bittle. I’m sorry to wake you.”  
 _Jack?_  
“Jack?” He asked, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Is something wrong?”  
There was a heavy pause.  
“Jack,” he said seriously, voice low. _“Is someone in the Haus?”_  
“No, Bittle, no,” Jack replied, hurried. “It’s, um.”  
Another pause.  
“Bitty could you just... stay on the phone with me, please?”

He was already putting a coat on over his pajamas.  
“Jack, I’ll be there in just a couple minutes, okay? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”  
“No, you don’t have to come, Bitty. It’s fine. Nothing’s wrong.”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Jack’s breathing was shallow and his voice was tense and choked.  
“Jack, you’re frightening me. You need to tell me what’s going on, or I’ll just go and call the police.”  
“ **Please don’t** , Bitty, _please_. It’s okay, I just need someone. To be. There. Okay?”  
Bitty leaned against the door, wiggling his sockless feet deeper into the sneakers he had shoved on.  
“Sometimes I just… I get really, uh … I’m sorry this is really, really stupid…”  
Bitty could her Jack’s breathing grow deeper, faster.  
“It’s okay, you can tell me what’s wrong, even if you think it’s stupid.”  
“I usually talk to Shitty when I get… like this… but I can’t… get him...”  
Jack sounded like he was choking up, and that was enough to send Bitty out the door.

“Why don’t you keep talking to me, okay?” He tried not to sound like he was running down the steps of the dorm, early spring chill biting at his lungs.  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is really dumb, Bitty I’m sorry.”  
“You don’t need to apologize. Are you breathing okay?”  
The lack of response was relieving when Jack’s breathing sounded like it was being forcefully slowed.  
“Tell me how you’re doing.” The Haus seemed farther away than usual.  
“I’m okay. I can’t… stop breathing hard but… that’s normal. When this happens.”  
“Jack I _get_ that you’re embarrassed by whatever you’re going through, but you _need_ to explain it to me, I’m frightened for you.”  
“Bitty, I **can’t**!”  
Bitty’s pace slowed. The Haus was in view, and Jack was definitely choking up.

\---

“Jack, let me in!” Bitty shouted at the bedroom door, even though the phone was still against his face.  
“It’s open,” he said, barely finishing the second word before Bitty was in the room.

Bitty knew what a panic attack felt like. He knew what it was like to be scared. Scared of what seemed to be nothing worth being scared about. Feeling _ashamed_ at being scared about nothing worth being scared about.

“Jack, you’re okay, do you need something to breathe into?”  
Jack wasn’t really in a state to answer, doubled over his knees on the bed, trying desperately to hold sobs back with his throat.  
Bitty, leaned down next to him, stroking his back. He wasn't hyperventilating. He was trying not to cry.

“Jack, I need you to either go ahead and cry, or try to breathe slower, okay. You’re gonna pass out if you don’t breathe.”  
The sobs seemed to come on harder, but not any more successfully. He didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t not. The resulting shuddering and choking was terrifying.  
Bitty leaned over Jack’s shoulder, pulling himself close to him and talking quietly in his ear.  
“Jack, I’m glad you called me. I’m glad I’m here. You can cry now. Cry as hard as you want. Let go now, okay?”

\---

Bitty usually woke up at 7 a.m. by the grace of his internal clock, so to be roused a second time in one night by an unexpected noise made him sigh before he even opened his eyes.  
When he did, it was not night at all, but morning, and Shitty was peeking in Jack’s doorway.  
“Is he okay?” he mouthed.

Bitty untangled Jack from his lap. He had fallen asleep stroking Jack’s hair as he cried, quieter and quieter until his breathing slowed and the tension melted away from his bones as he drifted to sleep. But Bitty had been sitting upright against the wall, and his back and neck were an awful kind of stiff.

He lay Jack’s head down on his pillow and scurried over, following Shitty down the hall after quietly closing Jack’s door.

“I didn’t get his messages until just now. My phone was dead, and … is he alright?”  
“I guess?” Bitty said, honest. “He was definitely a fright last night but then he…” Bitty wondered for a second if it was prudent to share that Jack had been crying, but Shitty cut him off.  
“I’m sorry, I’m usually there for him. He has these panic attacks. He doesn’t want anyone to know about them, so — ”

So... _a lot of things._

 _So_ he didn’t get Ransom or Holster, even though they’d be as supportive as anyone else and were in the Haus already.

So... he _DID_ call Bitty.

“He called me,” he said out loud.  
“I’m glad he did, man. He gets so caught up in his head. I’m glad you were there for him.”  
“Why did he call me?” Bitty asked.  
Shitty shrugged. “He must trust you, I guess.”

That was the heaviest thing to land on his heart yet.

They sat on the couch. It was still early, the light coming in the windows still soft and young. Everyone else in the Haus was still blessedly asleep, but they kept their voices low anyway.

“Does that happen a lot?” Bitty asked.  
“Not a lot...but...enough that it’s a thing.”  
“Can I ask what… it’s about?”  
Shitty twisted his lips up to the side, tilting his mustache. “I… only kind of know, myself. I think he just gets freaked out by the fact that he’s not as successful as he could be by now. That he’s letting people down, that he’ll never catch up, stuff like that.”  
“But that’s ridiculous. I mean, Sports Talk can’t stop going on about him. He’s _killed_ every single game this year…”  
“Yeah, he knows that, but... you know. When he freaks out, the facts don’t matter. It’s just feelings.”  
Bitty took a deep breath and stared down at his hands.  
“Yeah. I guess I know how that goes.”  
“He gets freaked out and then he gets caught up in a loop of macho shit… not wanting to cry, feeling bad that he’s feeling bad, you know? I feel bad for him but I can’t do much, you know. I can be there when he calls.”  
A pause.  
“I mean, usually.”

Bitty stood up and rummaged his phone out of his pocket. It was still pretty early, according to the clock.

“Well, there’s not much I can do, either, but…”

_...but there’s one thing he does better than anyone else._

**So.**

\---

Jack finally woke up at 9:30. Later than usual, but still reasonable, given the night he’d had before. He rubbed his face, stiff and puffy and gross, tried not to think about calling Bitty, crying like a baby in front of him, in his arms--

\--but there’s only so much not-thinking-about-Bitty you can do when he’s left you a freshly baked pecan pie right there on your desk.

Sorry. Pe _can._


End file.
